Street Vegan by Adam Sobel: A review and recipe!

Once upon a time, New York City’s food trucks were devoid of many vegan food options. But then, three or so years ago, the Cinnamon Snail blasted on to the scene. Within a few months, Adam Sobel’s vegan food truck gathered a cult-like following among New York City vegans and non-vegans alike. And it was a happy, but rare, occasion when the Cinnamon Snail didn’t have a long, winding line of hungry New Yorkers waiting for lunch. When news broke that the Cinnamon Snail wouldn’t be serving NYC on a daily basis any more, the lines grew longer and longer every day as everyone tried to get in their last fixes. And I will admit, that I was one of those who spent hours in sub-zero temperatures lining up for sandwiches and donuts on the Snail’s last regular day in the city.

What was it that made the Cinnamon Snail everyone’s favorite food truck? The flavors. Everything, and I mean everything, that the Cinnamon Snail ever sold tasted phenomenal because of the layers of amazing, complementary and contrasting flavors. Take my personal favorite, the maple mustard tempeh sandwich, which had a nice slab of tempeh marinated in mustard and maple syrup, with generous layers of roasted garlic aioli, marinated kale, tomato and onion. Let me tell you, that combination of salty, sweet and savory it is the very thing dreams are made of.

Their donuts acquired legendary status and I was over the moon when they started selling gluten-free ones last year. And their breakfasts… let me just say, oh my!

Luckily, now that the Cinnamon Snail only makes appearances on special occasions, we addicts can now get our fix of Adam’s amazing creations by making them ourselves, at home, with the help of his new cookbook: Street Vegan. It includes a lot of the recipes that we know and love, along with many others. And while I’m normally not one to spend hours putting together different components to make a meal, because I know just how amazing the results will be I have gone to unusual lengths in the kitchen since getting my hands on Street Vegan to make some pretty spectacular meals. And while the Cinnamon Snail always had some items for those of us who were gluten-intolerant, I’ve been able to try things I never was able to buy from the truck itself by adapting some of Adam’s recipes to make them gluten free.

Street Vegan by Adam Sobel

The first recipe I made was the Korean Kimchi Soup with noodles and fried tofu! I had some homemade kimchi already in the fridge, so I skipped the step of making Adam’s kimchi recipe. And instead of wheat-based udon noodles, I substituted Explore Asian’s Soybean Spaghetti, which was perfect. I did make the gochujang sauce though, even though this recipe calls for a mere 4 teaspoons, because I knew that there would be many other uses for it. I just subbed the flour in that recipe for Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour.

My jar of gochujang sauce!

I topped it with a little ribboned kale because I didn’t have any scallions (and used a shallot in the recipe instead).

Korean Kimchi Soup!

The results? Spectacular. The broth had a beautiful silky texture and was just loaded with flavor! This is something I’m going to be making again and again!

The other thing I knew I had to make was the famed Gochujang Burger Deluxe. Now, people rave about this burger, but because the Snail’s version is made with seitan and the gochujang sauce contained wheat, it was something that was always off limits for me. And let me tell you why: this sandwich has an amazingly flavorful spicy burger, greens, sriracha mayonnaise, gochujang sauce, pickled veggies, black sesame gomasio all on a buttered pan-fried bun. Yes, it’s intense.

The burgers, before I added the gomasio…

To replace the seitan in the recipe I rehydrated two cups of Butler Soy Curls, which ended up being just perfect! I also subbed the flour for gluten-free flour again. But otherwise followed the rest of the recipe for the burgers pretty much to the letter.

With the spectacularly flavorful black sesame gomasio

Now, I’m not really one to follow instructions at the best of times or plan ahead, and so I didn’t have any daikon radishes for the pickled vegetable topping. Instead of radishes, I used carrots and to keep the pickles raw (and make the process quicker!) I softened the carrots and leeks by salting and pressing them for 15 minutes, before adding some apple cider vinegar, brown rice syrup and mustard seeds.

Get in my belly!

Again – this burger was amazing. Simply amazing. As I finished it, deeply satisfied, I reflected that the reputation it had acquired was well, well deserved.

Finally, I couldn’t stop myself from trying something else that I always craved from the truck, but could never indulge in myself: the cinnamon snails! They don’t look quite as pretty as Adam’s, because gluten-free doughs tend to crack a little when they expand, rather than staying nice and smooth. But I can guarantee you that they are every bit the gooey, craveworthy treat that the Snail is famed for.

Cinnamon snails!

I asked Adam if he wouldn’t mind if I shared my gluten-free version of his recipe and he, very kindly, said yes. Because my household is comprised only of two, I cut the recipe down by a third, so we wouldn’t overload on sugary awesomeness.